A long holiday weekend

The long holiday weekend comes in handy as I look back over my year of reading... and plan next years lists. Favorites from 2011 include:

• The Contract Surgeon and The Indian Agent by Dan O'Brien
• Doc by Mary Doria Russell
• Blackout by Connie Willis
• Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
• old favorites reread, and a number of new series started

But generally I notice that my reading was sort of random, wandering, and included a lot of fluff (crap is a better word maybe). A large part of that is due to the availability of free fluff (crap) for the kindle... something I intend to discontinue in 2012.

2012 is going to be the year I get back to the genres that turned me into a reader in the first place; Science Fiction and Fantasy (two separate genres...not one as so many stores mistakenly assume). My overall goal is to read 12 squared books (144) in 2012, separated into 4 categories. You can go here to see the descriptions and a record of my reading throughout the year. Here's a short list:

• Science Fiction (36 titles, includes some real chunks... heavy reading, but important books that I've wanted to read)
• Fantasy (36 titles, again with the heavy books, several rereads of old favorites)
• Military (36 titles, fiction & non-fiction... )
• Collections/Mysteries/Group Reads (36 titles, I must have 100 short story collections in my library, mysteries need to be included somewhere and I'm determined to participate in some group reads in 2012)

As I've reached my goals for 2011 (to read 100 books, I'm currently at 119), I've decided to abandon most of the partially completed books lying around and start counting for 2012 on December 1st (actually I'm starting today, but I won't record anything til Dec. 1) with the new reading lists and goals.  Future posts will include more detail and lists of books for each category.

This is a hefty reading challenge I've set for myself. I look forward to a long year of reading some good stuff...